So I am listening to a ton of pep and marching band music today. My head is now

[GreenPartyVoter]

throbbing in time with the tuba section. LOL

[YoungDemCA]

1. I've got a good friend who was in marching band throughout high school

He maintains it counts as a sport, but I'm not so sure....

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. The teams that are running up and down and constantly changing formation are definitely

working hard!

I'm collecting music pieces for my cheerleaders to dance to. It's fun, but I am wearing headphones so my brain is now pulsating. LOL

[HopeHoops]

3. I played tuba as a senior - 4-valve rotary Meinl Weston - brand new.

I also played Sousaphone in the marching band that year. My main axe is sax, but I went for something new that year.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Cool! My older son plays tenor sax. He seems pretty content to stick with it for now, though.

[HopeHoops]

11. I've played alto, tenor, and baritone. Alto and baritone are the same key, tenor is trumpet.

When you get to the point where you don't need to think about what keys to press, you're a sax player. It took me 20 years, and I started in '75 or so. When you can hear what you want to play in your head and your fingers just do it, you're a sax player. I think the same is true of guitar, but I've been playing that since the early 70's and I'm still not at that point. Go figure.

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. He started with 2 years on Alto in 4th and 5th grade. Moved up to Tenor in 6th. He has a really

lovely sax that he begged and begged us for, promising he would stick with it.

This is similar to his, but he has silver keys:

http://www.kesslermusic.com/KesslerCustomSax/Deluxe/KCTDBC/KCTDBC.htm

He's not at the point where he plays what's in his head. He doesn't practice as much at home as he probably should, but now that he is in high school perhaps his band teacher can inspire him. I am told he is just fabulous!

[HopeHoops]

13. I started sax in 6th grade. They tried to start me on bari. LOL!

Sitting down in a chair, I could barely reach the mouthpiece with my neck stretched and head tilted back and my right arm was nowhere near the lower keys. They decided to try me on alto instead.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. LOL Yes, that's why he started with alto as well. Found an old Buescher on Ebay for the first

Last edited Sun Sep 9, 2012, 12:32 PM - Edit history (2)

year of music. It was older than I am! LOL It died after the first year and he got a very nice student alto, brand new. And now he has the tenor, which I think has a very nice tone. He has a couple of "solos" where you can hear it pretty well.

Jazz Band @ around 2:40

Town Band around 2:05, and 6:00

[HopeHoops]

17. Yes, he does have nice tone, and he seems to understand that only one note is ever in tune on a sax.

It doesn't matter WHAT note, just one will be in tune. You have to do the rest with your jaw. The girl in the first video (next to him) doesn't seem to grasp that. It was still a nice performance, but she doesn't have the ear he does.

What make/model of tenor does he own now? My alto (now my youngest daughter's) is a '76 Selmer Signet. The only thing that's been replaced is the mouthpiece cork on the neck. All of the pads and springs are original. I've disassembled it and re-assembled it several times to clean it and adjust the springs. You could hand me a box with all of it's parts and I could put it together in an hour. I just wasn't playing it enough and she was. It's hers now. I can still pick up a sax and wail, but there's not much of a demand for that now.

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. He has a Kessler. I think we found it on Ebay and it was being sold by

a pro musician who was upgrading to something even better. So we got a really good deal on a fancy sax for a 12 yo kid. I think he even threw in a nicer mouthpiece than the original.

http://www.kesslermusic.com/KesslerCustomSax/Deluxe/KCTDBC/KCTDBC.htm

You never know about playing again. Maybe someone in your area is looking to put together a little soul band or something just for fun?

[HopeHoops]

19. Nice horn! I might pick up a Jupiter at some point - basic, but good quality.

I've thought about doing the street musician thing around Christmas, not so much for the money but because I can play damn near anything without sheet music. I just hear it. If I do, I'll make a bunch of cedar gingerbread man tree ornaments and hand them out to kids. It just sounds like fun. I called the Harrisburg department of whatever the fuck ordinance you need to do something and they said it was fine as long as I'm not SOLICITING money. An open sax case is fine.

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. That sounds pretty cool, actually! I wish I was musical or could sing, but

I just don't got the music in me. Lucky for my older son, he takes after his dad.

[marzipanni]

4. LOL... Oompa-oompa

Around here in California the Mexican bands and music played on car stereos remind me of German music.

Dropped my 17 year old son off at his school at 4:45 a.m. The marching band is going to the U.C. Berkeley game to play with the U.C. band and a bunch of other high school bands.
He plays saxophone, but is picking up trombone because they need a trombone player this year.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. How exciting! My older son plays tenor sax and my husband plays trombone. Hope your son

Last edited Sat Sep 8, 2012, 02:39 PM - Edit history (1)

enjoys the change.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

15. How about cello?

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. LOL

[applegrove]

7. Dad? Is that you? LOL!

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. LOL Really? He does it for fun, not for work?

[applegrove]

9. He loves military marching band music. I think because his father was a military

type who fought in WWII. Dad's was a tween in that era. During the war, my dad lived by a military airport that had at least one of all the military planes in WWII. He could identify each plane simply by the sound of the engine without looking and sketched them endlessly.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Sounds like it was a passion for him, then!

[fbguy_144]

21. well, that's to be expected

really